How Liverpool fans put up with this I will never know. At the ground where they once gorged on wonderful attacking football, now they get by on scraps. For all that they feasted here, it only increased the frustration. If you know your chef can produce such treats, why would you merrily applaud when he keeps serving up overcooked Brussels sprouts and limp oven chips?

Sure, Liverpool were good. But too often this season, against Everton, Tottenham, Birmingham and Portsmouth, and in every season since their last title in 1990, they have served up swill. Their best performances might be very fine indeed, but each of them is tainted by the foul flavour of failure. They made history last night, but how long before this achievement is mocking them as they labour to another disappointment? At the moment, they are a record-breaking irrelevance.

Still, they deserve some credit. There was no fear here. The team began as had their fans, whose rendition of You'll Never Walk Alone lacked nothing by way of belief. This night might have ended in misery, but it never seemed likely. Poor Besiktas; even a great team might have struggled to survive a night such as this, and Besiktas are certainly not great.

On this form Liverpool are hard to control. But so is the frustration, the teeth-grinding, infuriating, miserable irritation of this team. Week after week, under Benitez as it was under Houllier, Liverpool play as if in chains, constrained by expectation, or tactics, or inability. When they have to attack, when there is absolutely no choice, they do it rather well. But why they need their backs to be placed quite so close to the wall before they prove it?

Before this game, with the group stage effectively at half-time, Liverpool - twice finalists in the last three years and once, of course, winners - were facing what might have been their greatest humiliation in this competition. This was part one of the comeback. They must still beat Porto at Anfield in three weeks' time and then win in Marseille a fortnight later if it is to be completed, and even so they might miss out. But who, now, would bet against them?

Liverpool are comeback kings but Premier League paupers. Twice on their way to winning this competition in 2005 they were on the brink of disaster. At half time against Olympiakos in their last group game they were 1-0 down and heading for the Uefa Cup, and at the same stage of the final against Milan they were three goals behind and teetering clumsily towards embarrassment. On both occasions they scored three times in the second half, and by the time it all ended they were enjoying an open-top bus parade through town.

Other high-profile comebacks spring readily to mind: the FA Cup finals of 2001, when Michael Owen's double beat Arsenal, and 2006, when Gerrard equalised with a ludicrous shot from an absurd distance in stoppage time. Time and again, when Liverpool are fuelled by the combination of ability, desire and, perhaps, desperation, the best teams in Europe (and West Ham) have crumbled. The rest of the time, however, the only things to crumble are their fans' lofty expectations.

Benitez has won a lot of medals - two league titles in Spain, a Uefa Cup with Valencia, a Champions League and an FA Cup with Liverpool - but he how good a manager is he? So far, one would have to conclude that he is decent. But if he can create a team that attacks at will and not only in despair, if his side can do to Fulham on Saturday what they did to Besiktas and then do it all again, and again, and again, then he might stake a claim to greatness.

But he'd still have to explain why he bought Jermaine Pennant. That debate, however, can wait for another night.